Cable girl: Cheers

Not much that was good emerged out of the 80s. We may look back on neon make-up and shoulder pads with nostalgia for a misspent youth/early career, but with no great degree of pride or fondness. You Know Who was in charge throughout. Even the Wispa was a rare misfire in Cadbury's otherwise unmatched history of successful chocolatiering. But re-runs that have just started on FX prove that the decade was not entirely wasted. One word saves it from choco-socio-cultural ruin, and that word is Cheers

It must be noted that Cheers nearly didn't make it. During its first season, in 1982, it ranked 77th out of 77 shows and was almost cancelled. Looking back, it is impossible to see why. Whichever order you take them in, each character propping up, or serving at, the famous Boston bar is better than the last. Sweetly dim Coach, charming womaniser Sam Malone, extraordinary-in-the-most-boring-manner-possible Cliff Clavin: each of them stupid (and here was the really clever thing) in a totally different way. Excruciatingly cultured Diane Chambers, forever struggling to reconcile her cherished intellectual pretensions with her animal attraction to Sam, that fizzing ball of fury Carla Tortelli, stilling herself only to spit out one-liners drier than a roasted peanut, and the mighty Norm ("Norm!") were all there from the beginning, along with the alchemical process that allows some actors to find their rhythm with each other and make every good line a great one, and every great one comic genius.

Coach was replaced (after Nicholas Colasanto's death) by Woody, Frasier and Lilith joined the regulars, and Diane made way for Rebecca Howe. Viewers held their breath and exhaled with relief as the show made them its own, the comedy stream uninterrupted. Apart, possibly, from those surreal months with Roger Rees as Rebecca's boyfriend Robin Colcord, but at this distance I honestly can't be sure they actually happened. If they did, it was a small price to pay for redeeming an otherwise worthless decade.